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Centris650 · Sep 10, 2002, 03:25 AM

I was posting over at www.cityofheroes.com about how Mac Users have hope that CoH might be released for the Mac. Shifting through the usual mac flames a thought hit me, what is apple's strategy for gaming? Most any teenager who has a PC will tell you they'd never give up their PC because of the lack of games for the mac. And when cool games are released they are usaully delayed (some delays are quite long!)

Go to Apple.com. Where is the gaming button? There is none and it's hard to find your way to the gaming section as it is. My question is What is apple's gaming strategy? What are they trying to do make games easier to port over (a UNIX based system was a big step) and have parallel release dates with the PC version?

(Don't get me wrong. I love my Mac and have been a loyal user since 87 with a SE30. So this is not a flame but merely something I'm wondering about.)

poulh · Sep 11, 2002, 11:43 AM

Right now they are trying to get more people to buy macs! They've sold software in the passed at best buy, but its thrown together and not taken care of it does more harm then good.

If mom or dad buy a computer to play with an iApp, and say they buy it in an apple store. The kid might not be able to convince them to shell out a grand for a decent game-pc. Instead they will just go back and buy a game at the store.

schwa · Sep 12, 2002, 01:40 PM

Apple has a gaming strategy?

Seriously, beyond some token lip service, I think games will always take a back-seat to the "digital lifestyle" iApps. Why?

Developer tools- Apple now has great developer tools in OS X, but most game developers have been roped in by MS's proprietary formats (DirectX, DirectPlay) that make it a royal pain for them to port to the Mac.

Hardware- Apple simply can't keep its hardware up to the pace set by the Wintel standard. I'm not just talking CPU's here, but things like graphics and sound cards. Apple's sales strategy is new machines, not upgrades. The iMac is, effectively, not upgradeable beyond more memory. The Intel world is all about piecemeal upgrades, which makes for much higher adoption rates for cutting edge technology, which goes hand-in-hand with gaming.

rhino_g3 · Sep 14, 2002, 01:42 PM

I don't know that Apple has a gaming strategy but I did read something promising in MacAddict.

It talks about most Windows games are developed with DirectX which the Mac can't do a thing with. There is something now called MacDX that translates DirectX into a language the Mac can understand. Mabey this will cause more games to be made for the Mac since MacDX should take most of the work out of it.

Anyone else know more about MacDX and what it could do for Mac gaming?

rhino_g3

SteveJobs · Sep 15, 2002, 04:44 AM

Forget about MacDX.

Apple indeed has a team of people who are working with porting and other companies to bring games to the mac. I don't think we would have Lineage and World War II Online, if Apple wouldn't have lobbied them to bring it to the mac. Apple does not ignore games, be sure of this.

Steve

sideus · Sep 15, 2002, 09:05 AM

Forget about MacDX.

Ok, state why.

rhino_g3 · Sep 18, 2002, 06:52 PM

I agree, state why.

edddeduck · Sep 19, 2002, 06:14 AM

Originally posted by sideus:

Ok, state why.

Every porting house on the mac already has written their own "in house" versions of DirectX Conversion Tools they might not be as good or as complete BUT there is a lot more to porting a game than the DirectX bit.

GUI and IO also have to be rewritten as well as any "low level" assembly code.

Mac DX will have some uses (faster porting for less experienced companies as you will not have to create you own libraries) but it depends on the game I don't think (personally) it will make that much of an impact. An increase in Apple sales and good marketing will do more.

If you look Apple gaming is stronger now than ever before in its depth and range of titles.

Cheers Edwin

(These are my own thoughts not necessarily my employers)

[EDIT] Typo's [/EDIT]

rhino_g3 · Sep 20, 2002, 07:17 PM

Every porting house on the mac already has written their own "in house" versions of DirectX Conversion Tools they might not be as good or as complete BUT there is a lot more to porting a game than the DirectX bit.

GUI and IO also have to be rewritten as well as any "low level" assembly code.

Mac DX will have some uses (faster porting for less experienced companies as you will not have to create you own libraries) but it depends on the game I don't think (personally) it will make that much of an impact. An increase in Apple sales and good marketing will do more.

If you look Apple gaming is stronger now than ever before in its depth and range of titles.

Cheers Edwin

Hi Edwin,
The article in the recent MacAddict I referred to states: "Withe DirectX calls taken care of, developers are left with just a few tasks, such as creating a Mac installer and GUI elements outside the gameplay. Developers could conceivably make a game ready for Mac within a few days or weeks."

Must be quite a bit to the DirectX bit.

rhino_g3

SteveJobs · Sep 21, 2002, 06:23 AM

Yeah, but this article is rather crappy then. Westlake, for example, has really good libraries for porting Direct3D to OpenGL and yet games like Max Payne and Dungeon Siege take a long time because they feature a very complex engine.

Steve

rhino_g3 · Sep 21, 2002, 10:37 PM

Yeah, but this article is rather crappy then. Westlake, for example, has really good libraries for porting Direct3D to OpenGL and yet games like Max Payne and Dungeon Siege take a long time because they feature a very complex engine.

Steve

Wouldn't MacDX eliminate the need for having to port to OpenGL? Isn't the only reason for porting to OpenGL because up until now the Mac couldn't translate DirectX so they had to go the OpenGL route? Instead of having to port a DirectX game to OpenGL for the Mac to understand it they could just let MacDX do most of the work correct? I don't know, mabey I am missing something here.

Also, have you worked for Westlake? How would you know about their libraries? Just curious.

rhino_g3

Big Mac · Sep 22, 2002, 01:51 AM

I particularly lament the death of InputSprocket (from OS 9). Mac OS X seems to have much poorer game input support, and from what I've read the replacement for InputSprocket, HIDManager, is inadequate and difficult to write to.

Beyond that, larger marketshare would certainly facilitate a greater number of gaming titles (as well as software in general), but I also think Apple could do a lot more to support gaming as it is. Perhaps Apple could take one of the porting houses in house, or maybe it could just subsidize development.

rhino_g3 · Sep 22, 2002, 09:27 PM

Perhaps Apple could take one of the porting houses in house, or maybe it could just subsidize development.

I like the in house porting idea. Don't know why Apple hasn't done something like that. I guess games aren't on the top of their list but it should be in the top five if they want to succeed in home computing.

rhino